Zhuravli (Журавли, English: The Cranes), composed in 1968, is one of the most famous Russian songs about World War II.
Журавли
слова Расула Гамзатова, музыка Яна Френкеля
перевод с аварского Наума Гребнева
Полный текст песни:
Мне кажется порою, что солдаты,
С кровавых не пришедшие полей,
Не в землю нашу полегли когда-то,
А превратились в белых журавлей.
Они до сей поры с времен тех дальних
Летят и подают нам голоса.
Не потому ль так часто и печально
Мы замолкаем, глядя в небеса?
Летит, летит по небу клин усталый,
Летит в тумане на исходе дня,
И в том строю есть промежуток малый,
Быть может, это место для меня.
Настанет день, и с журавлиной стаей
Я поплыву в такой же сизой мгле,
Из-под небес по-птичьи окликая
Всех вас, кого оставил на земле.
Мне кажется порою, что солдаты,
С кровавых не пришедшие полей,
Не в землю нашу полегли когда-то,
А превратились в белых журавлей...
White Cranes lyrics (English translation)
Translated by Boris Anisimov
Sometimes it seems to me each fallen soldier
That never came back home from fields of gore
In fact did never perish, as they told you,
But turned into a crane as white as snow
And ever since those days in their due season
We've seen them soaring high across the sky
With distant voices giving us a reason
To stand in tears and watch them flying by
A wedge of cranes is fading in the distance
So far away I can no longer see
When I run out of days of my existence
I hope those cranes will find a gap for me
That I may soar above my pain and anguish
And join their ranks as many years ago
Recalling all their names in my new language
And names of those whom I have left below
Sometimes it seems to me each fallen soldier
That never came back home from fields of gore
In fact did never perish, as they told you,
But turned into a crane as white as snow
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| Naum Grebnev 1941-1943 |
Song story
The Dagestani poet Rasul Gamzatov, when visiting Hiroshima, was impressed by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and the monument to Sadako Sasaki. The memory of paper cranes made by the girl haunted him for months and inspired him to write a poem starting with the now famous lines: "It seems to me sometimes that our soldiers That were not to return from fields of gore Did not lie down into our land But turned into a wedge (triangle) of white cranes...". The poem was originally written by Rasul Gamzatov in Avar language. Its famous Russian translation was soon made by a Russian poet and translator Naum Grebnyov.
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| Mark Bernes |
The poem's publication in the journal Novy Mir caught the attention of the famous singer and actor Mark Bernes (often called the Russian Frank Sinatra) who revised the lyrics and asked Yan Frenkel to compose the music. When Frenkel first played his new song, Bernes (who was ill with cancer) cried because he felt that this song was about his own fate: "There is a small empty spot in the crane wedge. Maybe it is reserved for me. One day I will join them, and from the skies I will call on all of you whom I had left on the Earth." Bernes' new song premiered in 1969 and has since become one of the best known Russian-language songs all over the world. Bernes died a week after the recording.
In the aftermath, white cranes have become associated with dead soldiers, so much so that a range of WWII memorials in the former Soviet Union feature the image of flying cranes and, in several instances, even the lines from the song.
Source: wikiZhuravli song covers
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See also
